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From Tana French, “the most interesting, most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years” (The Washington Post), the bestseller called “the most stunning of her books”(The New York Times) and a finalist for the Edgar Award. Don't miss her newest, The Trespasser, now available.

Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was a nineteen-year-old kid with a dream of escaping hisi family's cramped flat on Faithful Place and running away to London with his girl, Rosie Daly. But on the night they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn't show. Frank took it for granted that she'd dumped him-probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again. Neither did Rosie. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie's suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank, now a detective in the Dublin Undercover squad, is going home whether he likes it or not.

Getting sucked in is a lot easier than getting out again. Frank finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind. The cops working the case want him out of the way, in case loyalty to his family and community makes him a liability. Faithful Place wants him out because he's a detective now, and the Place has never liked cops. Frank just wants to find out what happened to Rosie Daly-and he's willing to do whatever it takes, to himself or anyone else, to get the job done.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stef Penney: You have created a tapestry of interlocking characters who all work in law enforcement in Dublin, and so far you’ve turned the spotlight on three different police officers. . . Do you have a favorite? Have you found some harder to inhabit than others?

Tana French: Frank Mackey in Faithful Place was by far the most fun to write because he’s got that dark, abrasive Dublin sense of humor that surfaces even--or especially--at life’s worst moments. The hardest to get into was Scorcher Kennedy, in my new book, Broken Harbour--I’ve just finished the edits. I think it’s to do with the gap between the way Frank saw him in Faithful Place, where he was a supporting character, and the way he sees himself. Frank sees a rule-bound, up-himself, irritating git; but from Scorcher’s point of view, he’s a man struggling desperately to do the right thing in a world where you have to trust in the rules because your own mind is too fragile and slippery to trust. There’s a huge gap between the two perspectives, and it wasn’t easy to switch. That perspective shift is one of the things I enjoy most about writing a series of books, where a secondary character in one book becomes the narrator in the next--it lets me explore the way truth can be mutable and subjective, shaped by people’s own needs as much as by objective reality--but it’s also the toughest part of it.

Penney: You’re known for writing about Dublin. Can you see yourself going anywhere else as the setting for a book?

French: I’ll be sticking with Dublin--for the foreseeable future, anyway. It’s the only city where I know all the little details--the sense of humor, the connotations of the accents, where to get a good pint and where not to go after dark. Setting a book in a place I didn’t know this intimately would feel very dislocated. I think crime is very deeply rooted in its setting--it happens everywhere but the form it takes is shaped by the fears and desires of the society where it happens--and so crime novels are rooted in setting, too. Both In the Woods and The Likeness deal with the relationship between past and present--how to balance the two without destroying either--and that’s a question that Ireland’s been struggling (and often failing) to deal with over the past twenty years. It wasn’t a deliberate choice to make the books “relevant”; it’s just that since the issue was a central part of the world I lived in while I was coming up with the books, it soaked into them. If I set a book anywhere else, that connection wouldn’t be there. Plus, I love Dublin. I care about its fears and desires with a passion that I don’t feel for any other place. Faithful Place, especially, is a love song to Dublin, its bad side as well as its good. I can’t imagine writing about somewhere I don’t care about so strongly.

Penney: The Mackeys in Faithful Place are extraordinarily vivid, but it’s a terrifying, bleak portrait of family life. Does this relate to anything in your life? Or, if not, what made you interested in writing about such a family?

French: Thank God, my family’s nothing like the Mackeys! I had an unfashionably happy childhood. But I’ve always been most interested in writing about things I don’t know about. That’s at the heart of Faithful Place, in a lot of ways. It’s about a big family, and a viciously dysfunctional one, neither of which I’ve experienced. And it’s also about a family that’s very deeply rooted in Dublin, and specifically in the centuries-old community of Faithful Place. Those roots have shaped everything the Mackeys are. I’ve always been fascinated by that kind of rooted life because it’s something I’ll never have--my parents have a handful of nationalities between them, I grew up in several continents, I’m an international brat. . . Writing about something so far from my own life is the closest I’ll ever come to understanding it.

Penney: Down to nuts and bolts: How do you write? Are you very disciplined? I imagine you must be since you’re quite prolific!

French: Hah, I wish. I’m not one of nature’s disciplined types. Back in college, I had a reputation for going into the library only to convince other people to come out for coffee, and I haven’t changed that much. Every morning, I fight the urge to call my friends and see if I can persuade anyone to come out and play. These days, though, my disciplined side almost always wins. I work six days a week, about seven hours a day. What makes the difference is that I love what I do and I feel ridiculously lucky to be doing it. After years of acting, where you’re dependent on other people to decide whether you’re allowed to work or not, being able to work every day feels like a massive gift. That considerably lessens the urge to goof off.

Penney: Any TV or film adaptations in the works? Because there should be! If yes, how did you find the experience?

French: Paramount has optioned The Likeness and In the Woods, and I’ve just heard that Likeness is in development. I’m not totally clear on exactly what that means, but it sounds very cool but slightly intimidating. I’m dying to see what comes out at the other end, but I deliberately didn’t even try to ask for any role in the adaptation process because anything I know about writing fiction is probably worthless when it comes to writing film. They’re such utterly different genres that the book’s going to have to change in ways I can’t begin to picture.

Penney: I loved the mythic quality of the backstory in In the Woods--and the fact that in the end you refused to answer the question. Did you encounter any resistance from publishers over the ending?

French: No resistance from publishers. I was expecting it, because the ending does break genre convention--I was all ready to argue my case that this was the only ending with integrity and anything else would be forced and artificial, sacrificing character truth for cheap closure. But none of the editors ever suggested changing it. I do get e-mails from readers who hate the ending. Fair enough; the genre comes with expectation of closure and the book doesn’t provide it, and some people have real trouble with that. But I also get e-mails from readers who love the ending and who would have been furious if I’d sacrificed that integrity in order to stick to the rules. There was no way I could have written something that would make both types of readers happy. All I could do was write the best book I could and hope there were enough people out there who like the same kind of thing that I do.

Review

“Tana French’s mysteries are like big old trees: the deeper their roots, the more luxurious the foliage they wave in your face.” --Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

“French does something fresh with every novel, each one as powerful as the last but in a very different manner. Perhaps she has superpowers of her own? Whatever the source of her gift, it’s only growing more miraculous with every book.” --Laura Miller, Salon.com

“An expertly rendered, gripping new novel” --Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Irish writer Tana French hit the big time with her stunning cop-drama debut, “In the Woods,” and followed it with an equally brilliant book, “The Likeness.” Both demonstrated French’s gift for merging the best traits of the crime genre with the compassionate insights and nimble prose associated with “serious” literature. A third dazzler, “Faithful Place,” puts Detective Frank Mackey, a supporting actor from “The Likeness,” front and center.” --The Seattle Times

“[French] revisits, evocatively and lyrically, themes she's used before: love, loss, memory, murder, and life in modern Ireland. French's writing remains brilliant, and her dialogue is sharp, often lacerating, and sometimes mordantly funny. Faithful Place is her best book yet.” --Booklist (starred review)

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Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad (In the Woods: A Novel,The Likeness) is simply brilliant. French is a talented writer whose style is more akin to literature than to mystery thrillers, her series utterly unlike anything I've read in the genre before: each book is told from the perspective of a different protagonist - an ancillary character in previous books. (I accidentally read the 5th book in the series first, The Secret Place: A Novel, which is told from the perspectives of - and includes broad references to - _the Faithful Place_. While its not crucial you read them in order, the continuity and relationships make a lot more sense if you do.)

_The Faithful Place_ is told from the perspective of Frank Mackey, the handler of Cassandra Maddox in _The Likeness_. Mackey's impoverished childhood is detailed, as well as the disappearance of his first love, Rosie when was 19. What happened to Rosie Daly, and how it affected his childhood neighborhood (the Faithful Place) is plot of the story. As with the other Dublin Murder Squad thrillers, it is tragic, powerful and brilliantly written. While I was able to discern the details of the investigation mid-way through the book (which typically warrants four-stars), the motive was elusive - but most important was the way French writes.

Beyond the style of her series (each story from another perspective of a different character), each protagonist has a different voice, view of the world and inter-relationship with each other. Being able to see and interact with familiar characters through the eyes of another is no easy feat, but French does so as easily as a talented actor switches roles. The back-stories and personal histories further breathe life into her characters, the red-herrings, false leads and outfight lies and half-truths of suspects makes for engaging and fun reading.

For readers unfamiliar with the writer, I enthusiastically recommend her to you. For those who have read the previous books, you are in for a real treat.

I just reread this; It is by far my favourite of the series. Like many others I didn't like Frank Mackey in his earlier appearances. Hard, cynical and manipulative. Which he indeed is. This is just the story of the how and the why. Always a fascinating process. My mother was a Dubliner who grew up in an area close to this, went there very often as a child, so the language, the expressions, the characterizations were instantly familiar. So too, was the unanswered questions. The undercurrents within families, the tensions hidden from "the kids". Add to that the 1980's and lost love, the thought off what could have been. I hated it to end, again! Would love to see this on film, I think its a worthy contender, right up there with Dennis Lehane and Mystic River. It would have a similar atmosphere with a definite Dublin twist. I very much look forward to another chapter. Rereading just made me miss it more.

This is the first book I have read by this author, but I can assure you it will not be the last. I absolutely loved this book, not so much for the mystery, which the reader can pretty much figure out in large part, but because of the deftess of the writing. This author can write and does so with an authenticity of time and place, transporting the reader into the bowels of a dysfunctional Irish family. Therein lies the mystery.

The characters are well drawn and, as the plot develops, each character lays out the parts that allows the mystery to coalesce and be solved. It turns out that those recently discovered bones were once those of Rosie Daly, a local girl with big dreams who disappeared over twenty years ago and was never again never heard from. At the time, she had been in love l with a neighborhood boy by the name of Francis Mackey, who is now an undercover official certainly with the Irish guards. He is determined to find out what happened all those years ago to Rosie, who was the love of his life, and, perhaps, vanquish the ghosts that have haunted him ever since.

Beautifully written, those who enjoy mysteries will get much enjoyment from his book. It is both entertaining and gratifying on many levels. I certainly look forward to reading other books by this author.

Tana French has done it again. While I wasn't as captivated by this book as In the Woods and The Likeness, this book was definitely spectacular.

Tana French writes with eloquence and prose I've been sincerely missing in the current popular novels. I actually appreciate that she expects the reader to have a level of intelligence and an ability to draw their own conclusions when handed evidence. She sometimes leaves endings open for interpretation, but that makes the story seem more realistic to me.

This story itself was another example of the versatility in French's characters. Coming from Ryan, to Cassie, to Frank Mackey brought a wide variety of character personalization and development I rarely see. Mackey's story was laced with a complicated family history, but all the same I appreciated the complexity to familial relationships. It was definitely relatable and more realistic than other novels.

Also, I really love that these books can be read in any order the reader sees fit. I'm looking forward to the next two novels.